


No

by Ann_O927



Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 09:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19314955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ann_O927/pseuds/Ann_O927
Summary: Johnny Cade worshipped Dallas. Johnny Cade followed Dallas everywhere. Johnny Cade did everything Dallas said. Johnny Cade would never say no.Just an old one-shot I wrote, I think I wrote it with the intention of it being romantic but there really isn't much romantic about it.





	No

“We’re going back and turning ourselves in.”

I paused in the middle of crumpling up the greasy hamburger wrapper in my hands. I felt my eyes involuntarily widen and I gagged on whatever I still had in the the back of my throat. I let the wrapper drop to the floor of the car and swore for a bit, whatever word came to my mind. I turned to Johnny and made sure he saw the disbelief on my face, maybe even a little bit of menace. “What?”

“I said we’re going back and turnin’ ourselves in,” he repeated. His voice was quieter, but the firmness in it made me think that he wasn’t budging on this one. Johnny wasn’t the most motivated person, and he usually tried his best to make others happy. But I had seen him when he was stubborn, and he was tough as a mule. He wouldn’t argue with me, but he would make it quietly known that my opinion wasn’t very appreciated. And most of the time he never wanted to do anything stupid enough for me to really care, that was something Darry mostly did, so him and I never got into it. But now, with this, I was about as ready to back down as he was.

“I got a good chance of bein’ let off easy. I ain’t got no record with the fuzz and it was self-defense. Pony and Cherry can testify to that.” I laughed bitterly under my breath as he went on. By then, he had turned away from me, and his desperate words were made in such a haste and spoken so softly that I knew I was no longer the one he was trying to convince. 

And Cherry wouldn’t testify to shit. She acted like some wise, all-knowing soc, but she was more interested in helping Ponyboy than Johnny. Everytime someone mentioned the kid’s name around her she scowled, like she couldn’t believe that he would kill her perfect boyfriend. I guess it was around that point that I stopped chasing after her tail.

“We won't tell that you helped us, Dally, and we'll give you back the gun and what's left of the money and say we hitchhiked back so you won't get into trouble. Okay?” His eyes were wide, and they looked almost naive to me, innocent. I could tell that he was trying to look strong, maybe even impress me or Ponyboy, but from all the late nights we spent, him on my bed and me surrendering to the hard, wooden floor, with him asking questions upon questions of my time in prison, he knew that he wasn’t headed towards any benign path. 

I chewed on my ID, I hated when I fidgeted, and it didn’t occur often since I was never worried about anything. Only occasionally when Johnny would show up to my room and I’d pace around the floor wondering why I hadn’t killed his lousy excuse for a father yet. “You sure you want to go back? Us greasers get it worse than anyone else.”

He nodded. “I'm sure. It ain't fair for Ponyboy to have to stay up in that church with Darry and Soda worryin' about him all the time. I don't guess...I don't guess my parents are worried about me or anything?”

I was too zoned out to pay attention to the words that left my mouth. Something about the boys and Two-Bit trying to run off to Texas, or something. 

“My parents...did they ask about me?”

“No!” I snapped. My anger bubbled even more when I felt something hot and wet in my eyes, right on the verge of spilling. I swallowed spit and yelled, ‘cos that was the best thing I could do other than hit something and there was nothing to hit without me getting even more angry. “They didn't. Blast it, Johnny, what do they matter? Shoot, my old man don't give a hang whether I'm in jail or dead in a car wreck or drunk in the gutter. That don't bother me none.”

I didn’t look at his face, I knew that that would make me feel even worse than I already did. And when I thought over the words I had just said I could feel my heart sink, like it was palpable. So I reminded myself that it was better not to feel at all and shifted the gears of the car, making my way out of the Dairy Queen and fast. 

“Dammit, Johnny,” I felt like cussing even more, so I let a few of those slip through my teeth even though I could see it made Johnny tense from the corner of my eye. “Why didn't you think of turning yourself in five days ago? It would have saved a lot of trouble.”

“I was scared,” he said. His voice a little louder, begging to be heard over the engine and the dirt road, so desperate that I had to breathe in a little deeper so those tears wouldn’t spill. “I still am.”

And it made me feel so useless. Everything I had done, cleaning his wounds on cold nights where I was fighting sleep, sneaking him out of his house, making him laugh because if I saw him frown one more time that would be the end for me, holding him, fucking holding him, while he was shaking just so that he wouldn’t cry, telling him not cry so it looked like I couldn’t bare his pansy shit but in reality knowing that if he did I would too, it all meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. For as long I had known him I dedicated hours, years, to him, just because him being around gave me something to look forward to, him being happy. But he was still scared, he was still hurt, no matter what I did he would always need his parents and he would always hate himself and nothing I could do could change that. I wasn’t enough. Giving him and his stupid “best friend” a gun and a one-way ticket out of prison wasn’t enough.

Maybe someone better than me, someone nicer and sweeter who wasn’t afraid to show emotion and would let him cry, someone smarter who knew better than to hand a sixteen year old a loaded heater and could give advice, someone he could love, maybe they could mean something to him. But no, I was just mean Dallas Winston, useless, and I could never amount to anything in his eyes. I could never live up to the hero he wanted me to be. And it was only a matter of time before he stopped worshipping the ground I walked on and realized just how pathetic I was. 

“Johnny-” Better now than never, I thought. If I could lay my sins bare to him then better right here, zooming past the country on a dirt road, right in front of the annoying kid brother. Here I was, stupid, useless, and desperate for him. Only him. "Johnny, I ain't mad at you. I just don't want you to get hurt. You don't know what a few months in jail can do to you. Goddammit, Johnny-” I let my hand beat the steering wheel and had the other brush blonde strands out of my eyes, the distractions momentarily stalled the tears. “You get hardened in jail. I don't want that to happen to you. Like it happened to me…”

And it’s not like this shit was new to him, I told him about it all the time. What men do to you in jail, how hard you have to get to finally make them stop, he had heard all about it. My tactics were failing and the cards were out of my hand and, even worse than all that, my poker face was falling. Sure, I had warned him about jail and told him about awful shit that had happened to me, but at least I told him smirking, at least at the end of each sentence I added ‘but that’s old news, shit don’t bother me no more.’ And here it was, it did bother me, I was weak, don’t end up like me, be good, be better, be worth something.

"Would you rather have me living in hideouts for the rest of my life, always on the run?" He asked, softly but not silent. Firm.

I almost gave a breath of relief. I was still Dallas Winston, still his hero, he would listen to what I said. I thought over his question and nodded, “Yes.” It may seem selfish, but as long as it kept the Johnny I knew that same, as long as he would forever be mine, then that was okay.

We drove for a while in silence before he finally responded. By then the tears dried, and I didn’t need to cry anymore, I was just in plain shock when he said, “No.”

My foot almost slammed on the breaks right then and there, and I might as well have been knocked all the way to the moon. I could feel Ponyboy’s jaw dropped ten feet below him. I could feel the car slowing as I turned to Johnny, mouth open in surprise. “W-what did you just say?”

Instead of hunching over and silently repeating his words, or ignoring them altogether, he looked at me with a fire in his eyes and his jaw set firmly. “No.”

I must’ve been in shock, all I could say was, “What?”

He seemed sick with my response, and he scoffed in disgust. I could feel my body tense in fear, the day of him realizing just how useless I was wasn’t coming, it was here, it was now. And he must’ve known that I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t hit him or hurt him, everything I was and could do was futile. 

“No, Dallas,” God, he used my full name. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, or what’s been wrong with me, but-but I don’t have to follow every single thing you say, like your word is God or something.” He wasn’t even firm anymore, he was angry, he was mad at me. He couldn’t even look my direction, he was looking away. And even though I was driving I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. “I mean, everyone’s always telling me to be a man, and so are you, you’re always telling me to stop being a pansy, and still all I do is just follow everything you say. Everything you do I have to do, and I’m tired of it.”

“W-well,” I was just flabbergasted. I bit my tongue and the only words that could come out of my mouth were words looking for a fight. “Why are you mad at me? Why are acting like it’s all my fault that you don’t have the balls to make your own decisions!”

He burned red at that and turned to face me, so mad that it was almost unearthly. “Don’t act like you have no part in anything and that this is all my fault!”

“It is all your fault!” I countered. “All this shit that’s happening is because of you!”

“Of course someone like you would stoop that low, Dallas!”

My heart dropped. Someone like me?

“What! What do you mean someone like me?!” I knew what he meant. But fighting was the only thing stopping the water that had recently gathered in my eyes from leaking. “Go on tell me!”

“You know what I mean,” He said.

“What was that?” I made sure to tease. “Come on, I couldn’t hear you. You talk so fucking low! What were you saying?!”

“SOMEONE. LIKE. YOU!” He said each word slowly as he turned to me. My hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles turned white. “A horrible, rotten person who doesn’t care about anyone but themselves! You Dallas! That’s you!”

Each word felt like a stab to the heart. “Well, then why are you always hanging out with me, huh? What, are obsessed with me? Are you in love with me? If you hate me so much then just leave, okay! Stop dragging me into your problems!”

“I drag you into my problems?” I tried to ignore the crack in his voice.

“Why the fuck else would I be here?”

“You’re always looking for ways to get me out of your hair!” He yelled, almost crying. I don’t think he cared about the tears leaking from his eyes, it almost made me jealous. “You always try to get rid of me!”

“That’s not true-”

“It is and you know it! You say I hate you? You hate me!-”

“That is so fucking not true-”

“I never meant anything to you! This whole time I cared about you! I cared about you so damn much, probably more than anyone else in my life! And you knew it! And you used me! You told me to get things for you and do things for you! A-and I was like a toy to you!” He was straight up bawling at this point, I bit my lip to stop my sobs. “You just used me to do what you wanted! And I always felt like-like less than the whores you always beat on and-I’m just so damn tired of people using me whenever they feel like it, because they know I’m weak and they know how much I love them-” I wiped a tear from my face as discreetly as possible, “-and they know that I can’t do nothing, and you know what, Dallas?”

He paused. At first I thought he was collecting himself after crying and all, but then I realized he was waiting for me to respond. I swallowed nervous spit and let out in the coldest voice possible, “What?”

He wasn’t looking at me anymore, and there were no more tears in his eyes. “You can find someone else to suck you off, I’m tired of you.”

By then Ponyboy had said nothing and we both jumped in shock when he suddenly yelled from his spot behind us, “Oh, glory!”

There was the church, in flames, poised like a house of cards about ready to collapse in on itself. Johnny’s face was stern as he hopped out of the slowed car, “Let’s go see what the deal is.”

I could see Ponyboy glance back at me with a worried look before he took off behind him. Still worried that my voice would crack, I coughed and stalled a bit before finally yelling, “What for? Get back in here before I beat your head in!”

But it was too late. One second they were lost in the crowd, and the next right after I finished parking they were both running inside like maniacs, jumping through windows. “Holy fucking shit!” I yelled before I ran up the hill and stood by the concerned spectators.

I should’ve gone in. I should’ve ran inside and grabbed Johnny by the collar and told him how stupid he was and let the church and the kids and Pony die and we could’ve just said sorry to each other and ran off. I didn’t. Dammit, was I embarrassed? Reality slapped me hard when Johnny basically outright told me that I wasn’t his hero no more, and here standing outside of the church while he was inside rescuing children made me realize I never could be. And when he briefly came to view, throwing a kid through a window, I caught a glimpse of him and he caught me, he didn’t look like he regretted anything. He was fine, almost happy. And the look he gave me, it was almost like he told me with words that he didn’t need me anymore. Then he disappeared.

They sure took their time in there, and the roof seemed to wobble and squeak, just on the brink of caving in. When I saw Pony’s face I thought Johnny would be right there behind him, but he wasn’t. I yelled and screamed, telling him to come out and forget the damn kids, hoping that somehow Johnny could hear me. Eventually, Ponyboy was pushed out of the window with the rest of the kids, and the roof couldn’t hold up any longer. In less than a second, just as I heard him scream, I realized Johnny was still in there and took off my jacket as I tried to make it in through the window.

I saw him, face no longer calm, worried that he wasn’t gonna make it. He screamed my name when he saw me, so desperate, so needing. He ran as fast as he could, and I held my arm out as I called to him, “Johnny! Hurry man! Come on!”

He coughed as a response and his fingers barely grazed mine before the roof began to collapse on his body. I screamed a swear word and nearly dove half of my body in the place, grabbing his hand and dragging him out as hard as I could. As I fell on the grass beside the destroyed church I felt his limp body on my chest. He was hot, no, burning. His skin was crisp and burnt. And then I really thought he was dead. And I didn’t know if the pain I felt came from that thought or my burned arm.

“God, no,” I breathed. “Shit no, not before I can say that I’m sorry.” I pulled him closer to my chest and it took heavy persuading to convince me to give him to the paramedics. I was in the same ambulance as him, and though I was still in pain stretched out on a mat, seeing him that weak hurt more. I wanted to touch him or something. They said he was still alive, golly, it didn’t look that way.

I whispered empty apologies to him the whole ride, probably not grasping the fact that he was out cold. I said I was sorry that I made him feel unappreciated, that I couldn’t be as great as he always wanted me to be, that nothing I did could help him. And right when it seemed he was about to wake up and I could tell him everything I had always wanted to, they placed us on different beds and rolled us away from each other. That night, I prayed to a God I hadn’t believed in in years to not let him die without me seeing him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again! This really isn't the best, I wrote it some months ago, maybe a year. And the dialogue and escalating is kind of funny and my character voice isn't the best. But I thought: why not post it??? I have other JohnnyxDally fic I wrote some time ago but it's absolutely terrible that I might post just to get it out there and stop hoarding it. Chapters for No More Sunsets will be updated every week on Wednesdays, so stick around if you like my stuff!


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